Priyanshu Rajawat in action© X (formerly Twitter)
Priyanshu Rajawat was the lone Indian shuttler to qualify for the quarterfinals in men’s singles, while Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand made the cut in women’s doubles at the Syed Modi International badminton tournament on Thursday. Priyanshu, who won the Orleans Masters this year, emerged victories after compatriot Sathish Kumar Karunakaran retired while lagging 18-21 6-11 in the second round match. The world no. 31 Indian will now clash against Indonesian qualifier Alwi Farhan. Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Treesa and Gayatri, seeded fourth, defeated compatriots Dhanyaa Nandakumar and Ridhi Kaur Toor 21-9 21-5 and are set to face another Indian pair next. As many as 10 Indians had participated in the men’s singles draw which has world no. 12 Japanese Kenta Nishimoto and world no. 14 Chou Tien Chen of Chinese Taipei as the top two world-ranked players.
While HS Prannoy and Lakshya Sen had withdrawn at the last-minute, the rest of the shuttlers, apart from Priyanshu, cut a sorry figure after failing to cross the second round of the Super 300 tournament.
World no. 40 Kiran George, who won the Denmark Masters this year, fought hard before losing 16-21 21-18 20-22 to world no. 36 Chia Hao Lee of Taiwan. Things were more gloomy in women’s singles as none of the Indian players could cross the second round, though as many as 11 of them participated in the tournament. The draw has Japan’s world no. 17 Aya Ohori as the top ranked player.
While the left-handed Ashmita Chaliha, who had won Maldives International this season, was outclassed by third seed Ohori 21-7 21-13, 16-year-old Unnati Hooda, the 2022 Odisha Open and 2023 Abu Dhabi Masters winner, was humbled 9-21 13-21 by former world champion Nozomi Okuhara of Japan and qualifier Janani Ananthakumar lost 15-21 12-21 to Malaysia’s Wong Ling Ching.
Anupama Upadhyaya, the former junior world no. 1 and current senior national champion, lost 16-21 17-21 to Taiwan’s Sung Shuo Yun, seeded eighth, while Ruthvika Shivani Gadde, who was part of the 2018 gold-medal winning Commonwealth Games mixed team, was no match for Thailand’s Lalinrat Chaiwan, losing 8-21 12-21.
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